


Secrets in a Dark Wood

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: Starsky's Clandestine Reports [2]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 18:25:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8928262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: Starsky and Hutch go camping.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Clandestine Report #29
> 
> This story originally appeared in the zine The Fix no.16.
> 
> These stories are not being posted in either their in-universe chronological order or in the order I wrote them. If there's a way of reorganizing them after they're all posted, I'll do my level best to do it, but don't let it worry you. They weren't published in that order either.

"Daniel Boone loses his sleeping bag." I was gloating and I knew it wasn't nice, but I didn't care. Hiking through the woods had been H's idea (of course) and he'd been disgustingly cheerful the whole day, singing hiking songs, pointing out the wonders of nature, and being, to my mind, a royal, insufferable pain-in-the-ass.

But at some point, at one of our rest-stops, H's sleeping bag got left behind. We noticed when we stopped to set up camp, and since it was close to dusk, there was no time to go back for it.

My remark won me a nasty look. "Shut up. It's your fault I left it behind; you're so disorganized I had to put you back together again after every rest stop."

"I thought the wilderness was your friend--why do you even need a sleeping bag?"

"Because it'll be getting down to about 45 degrees tonight, that's why. There's only one solution; we'll have to share your bag."

I sat down on a convenient rock. "Share mine? Are you kidding? Those things are like duck-down coffins--they're not made for two."

"Do you want me to freeze to death?"

"Nobody ever froze to death at 45 degrees--it's not even freezing." H just looked at me and after a moment, I sighed and gave in. "Oh, all right, I guess I got no choice--after all, your teeth chattering'd probably keep me awake all night anyhow. Go ahead and pitch the tent." I motioned at the rolled up tent.

"And what will you be doing while I pitch the tent?" H wanted to know. 

"Waiting right here."

"Get your ass over here and help me. I don't know who you think made you king of the jungle."

Well, hey, it was worth a shot. You'd think letting a guy share your sleeping bag would buy you a little consideration.

We got the tent up pretty easy, and H started a campfire where we cooked hotdogs, then we both got ready to turn in. I gotta admit, the close quarters had me kinda nervous. It had been months since I'd seen him in those scanty black bikinis, and I'd pretty well persuaded myself that the whole thing had been some kinda weird fluke; I didn't want one night of too-much-closeness proving me wrong.

Stripped down to long underwear, with some fancy maneuvering, we got ourselves zipped into my sleeping bag. "There's nobody else I'd do this for, you know. An' I'm not sure why I'm doing it for you; you're the reason we're out here--" Nervous, I found myself keeping up a constant stream of grumbling, just to get on H's nerves.

"Starsky, I'd like to go to sleep; we have a long day ahead of us."

"An' that' s another thing--what kind of vacation is, this? I'm more tired right now than after two days of double shifts--you promised me relaxation--"

"We're going to relax--we're going fishing."

"Where? Oregon?"

"There's a lake a couple of miles from here--"

"A couple miles?"

"Starsky, shut up. Tomorrow we'll move the tent closer to the lake and that's where we'll be staying. If you hadn't insisted on stopping to rest every half hour, we'd have made it to the lake tonight. But once we're there it'll just be five days of fishing and hiking under a beautiful blue sky--"

Oh, boy, he was at it again. "Can we save the nature talk for tomorrow? I'm tired."

He twisted around trying to get more comfortable and took me with him.

"Will you lay still? Geeze, I feel like we've been buried alive together."

"Starsk, you ought to be grateful I'm here--I can protect you from those savage squirrels and killer bunny rabbits roaming around. "

Very funny. "Move--your--knee--now!"

"Oh. Sorry."

"And stop talking about wild animals or I'll never get to sleep. You don't think that squirrels and rabbits won't attack people if they get hungry enough?"

"Forget about rabbits, Starsk, it's only the squirrels you have to worry about."

I really was tired; by the time I figured out that he'd called me a nut, H was asleep.

It was sort of interesting, waking up with H all wrapped around me. I was 

certainly warm enough, and listening to his breathing and heart beating, along 

with the early-morning bird songs was soothing and comfortable. Even the smell 

of him, and the scratchiness of his morning stubble was pleasant. There are worse things in the world than having to share a sleeping bag with H--sharing a toothbrush, for one. I wondered kinda vaguely if we'd back-track and search for his bag, or go on sharing mine?

Sleeping all tangled up together like this every night for a week was kind of enticing, in a spooky sort of way. I didn't wanna let myself think what kind of embarrassment it might lead to.

I must've drifted back to sleep, because the next thing knew H was waking me up.

"Come on, we don't want to sleep all day." H was struggling to get his arm out to unzip the bag.

After we got untangled H rekindled the fire while I got dressed and rolled up my sleeping bag. The zipper looked like it was tearing off. "Hey, we gonna look for your bag, or what?" I didn't need to keep testing myself--I'd made it through last night without any problem, and that was enough for me.

"Yeah, right after breakfast."

We found H's bag not all that far back and relocated ourselves a couple miles further along the trail, a little ways from the lake. The rest of the day we spent fishing (in other words, doing nothing) and talking quietly.

"Next vacation, we're going someplace indoors, with soft mattresses and no alarm clocks."

"If you can afford it, I'll be happy to go along, " H agreed mildly. The main reason I'd gone along with this camping out idea was that we were both pretty close to broke and the trip had cost very little.

"Yeah, well, I'll afford it if I hafta hock everything I own. I deserve a real rest."

"Oh? What makes you think so?"

"I'm a hardworking cop, that's what makes me think so."

H laughed. "Okay, I'll give you that one. But, Starsk, just look around you. You can't tell me you don't find all this beauty rejuvenating."

"Hey, I wasn't brought up with all this fresh air and green stuff. I mean, it's nice, but I can get along without it just fine." But I had to admit to myself, it was doing wonders for H's outlook on life. A couple days of sniffing the flowers and climbing the trees always brought me back the H I remembered from the Academy--all guilelessness and luster. It was worth a few stiff muscles to see him like that.

We managed to catch a couple fish--enough for dinner, along with the baked potatoes and coffee. We sat around the fire for an hour or so after dinner, not saying much (H calls it 'communing with nature,' but to me it was just goofing off. No problem there; I like goofing off). And H had even remembered to bring along the marshmallows, so while he communed, I roasted 'em for us.

It was a good thing we found H's bag--the temperature dropped a lot at nightfall and by the time we were ready for bed, we had to zip them together to keep warm. I told myself I didn't mind, that sleeping with H (with enough room to breathe) was friendly and comfortable. No big deal.

But for some reason I couldn't fall asleep right away, and when I did sleep, I was restless and kept waking up. Around three I woke with H in my arms, making little purry sounds in my ear. It took a few seconds to realize what was going on, and when I did, I found myself smiling in the dark.

H murmured something and pushed his pelvis against me. I stroked his hair with one hand while slipping my other hand inside his pants. I answered all his mutterings with soothing sounds, and stroked him easily. In a few minutes he was coming in my hand, then his tender lips kissed my neck, and he sighed, and shifted in my arms, snuggling against me. I had a strange feeling, of serenity, of rightness, and it gave me pause, but I brushed it aside. It hadn't been some grand, romantic moment, after all, but more of a--companionable gesture. It didn't mean anything; what was there to think about? Nothing. Not a goddamned thing. So I wiped my hand off and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, H was up already, packing our stuff. The early-early-early radio weatherman had forecast a cold snap--unseasonable frigid temperatures and snow before nightfall.

"You're gonna let a little thing like frozen water scare you home? Where's the old Hutchinson determination?" I'm not crazy about sleeping on the ground, surrounded by wild animals, so going home was okay with me, but I hated to see H' s good time screwed up. "You've been living in L.A. too long--I thought you were the one who loved snow."

H sighed. "I do love snow, but we're not prepared for it--we'd both catch double pneumonia staying out here. I've got most of our stuff packed up--we should be on the road in before nightfall."

H didn't say much on the hike back to the car, and for a while the ride was subdued. I tried making conversation, but H was, well, not ignoring me, but wrapped up inside himself.

"One thing we're not gonna do is let Dobey know we're back in town," I said. "He'd come up with an immediate emergency and we'd be called in to fix it--"

Finally, a smile. "So what do we do, go undercover?"

"I dunno." We didn't have the money to check into a hotel or anything; going home was about all we could afford--except maybe for sleeping in my car.

"You know, if this tomato wasn't so conspicuous, we could drive back into town without being noticed--"

"Bitch, bitch, bitch."

"So I guess we take our chances." I drove for a while in the quiet, then H said, "I had the weirdest dream last night..."

I waited, but he didn't say anything else. "Oh, yeah?"

H shook his head. "Never mind, it was too weird to talk about." I wish I knew what the dream had been, if he has any memory of what I did . . . . I wish we could talk about it--even though there's really nothing to talk about. It was no big deal or anything. I just helped him out--it was a friendly act, that's all, so what is there to say?

An' how the fuck many times do I gotta say it before I believe it myself?


End file.
